Mississippi State University (MSU) has received a $12 million grant from the National Science Foundation (NSF) to promote AI competency among high school students in Mississippi with the end goal of preparing them for the workforce.
An interdisciplinary research team will lead the three-year grant project to offer hands-on machine learning experiences to high school computer science teachers and students, focusing on underrepresented populations in STEM and rural areas across the state.
The team will be led by Principal Investigator Yan Sun, associate professor in MSU’s Department of Industrial Technology, Instructional Design, and Community College Leadership in the College of Education.
The project includes 15 teachers and 60 students and is funded by the NSF Innovative Technology Experiences for Students and Teachers program. As part of the research project the MSU team and undergraduate mentors will engage project participants by preparing image data, training image models using machine learning, and creating systems that can perform intelligent vision tasks.
“AI is driving our nation’s economic development and reshaping future jobs and the workforce,” Sun said. “K-12 education is facing the challenge of developing students’ AI competency. Our project will utilize image classification and computer vision to provide meaningful learning contexts for both high school students and teachers’ professional development.”
The participants will be organized into a year-long cohort of students and teachers. The cohort can attend a summer camp at MSU and create a smart device each semester. Each cohort will conclude with a showcase of their work at the end of the school year.
“Most AI projects for K-12 students focus on AI concepts, but ours is unique because we want students not just to be consumers of AI but creators of intelligent solutions and contributors of AI fairness,” Sun said. “To achieve these learning goals, our project will engage students in hands-on experiences of devising intelligent computer vision systems; building awareness and knowledge of the limitations, vulnerability and biases in image classification models and computer vision applications; and exploring solutions for preventing or minimizing such vulnerabilities and biases.”
Lisa Thomas, a professor MSU’s Department of Industrial Technology, Instructional Design, will serve as project coordinator. Department of Computer Science and Engineering Assistant Professors Jingdao Chen and Zhiqian Chen will round out the grant program’s leadership team.
